ex 
1 2;  6*3 


AN   OLD   NEW  ENGLAND   HYMN-BOOK. 


509 


"Gone,  is  he?"  said  the  day-nurse 
two  hours  afterward.  "  Well,  it's  only 
what  I  expected  —  it  was  a  hopeless 
case.  Alone  with  him,  were  you?  Did 
you  have  no  help?  " 

"  I    had   all  the  help  I  needed,"   she 


replied.  She  spoke  quietly,  and  looked 
straight  forward  as  she  spoke. 

"  He  died  quiet  and  unconscious,  then  ? 
There  was  no  struggle,  was  there  ?  " 

"None  —  to  speak  of,"  said  Steve 
Corvin's  wife. 


AN  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  HYMN-BOOK. 

By  Helen  Marshall  North. 


>3j 

il    f 

N  the  book-racks  of  an 
old  New  England  meet- 
ing-house we  find  the 
fresh  modern  hymn  and 
tune  books ;  but  tucked 
in  by  their  decorous 
sides  one  occasionally 
sees  the  old  "Watts  and  Select,"  which 
has  been  in  good  and  regular  standing  so 
long  that  its  friends  hesitate  to  excom- 
municate it. 

This  same  old  "Watts  and 'Select " 
was  used  within  the  memory  of  one  little 
girl  not  so  many  decades  ago,  and  was 
her  one  recreation  in  the  old  church,  on 
a  Sabbath  morning,  after  she  had  carefully 
regarded  all  the  bonnets  and  shawls  of 
the  congregation  in  the  hope  of  finding  a 
new  one  ;  had  ascertained  that  each  fam- 
ily was  in  its  proper  place  and  that  the 
particular  rosy-cheeked  friend  whom  she 
met  but  once  in  the  week  was  on  hand 
and  that  hence  a  little  diversion  might 
be  expected ;  and  had  counted  all  the 
knot-holes  with  which  some  thrifty  builder 
had  decorated  the  walls. 

When  the  minister  was  well  started  on 
his  way  through  "  firstly,"  "  secondly  "  and 
so  on  up  to  "tenthly,"  from  which 
he  made  an  apparently  abrupt  back- 
ward march  to  something  that  sounded 
like,  "  In  view  of  this  subject,  Friday, 
March  first,  second  "  and  so  on,  but  which 
later  intelligence  discovered  to  be,  "  I 
remark  first,  second"  and  so  on, — 
then  this  little  girl  was  allowed  to  slip 
down  to  a  seat  on  the  long  footstool  and 
study  her  good  friend,  the  hymn-book. 
The  kind  mother-hand,  in  an  especially 
shiny  dark  green  kid  glove,  occasionally 
reached  down  to  smooth  the  forehead  of 


the  young  hymn- reader,  and  the  little  girl 
loved  to  fondle  that  dear  hand,  which  was 
small,  too,  and  the  pleasant  dark  green, 
glossy  glove.  The  big  brother  with  mis- 
chievous eyes  was  securely  stationed  be- 
tween the  parents,  out  of  harm's  way,  and 
the  sermon  went  on  and  on  and  on,  as 
the  little  girl  turned  the  leaves. 

The  old  book  was  particularly  fat,  burst- 
ing with  interesting  things  and  with  many 
mysteries,  too,  which  could  not  be  fath- 
omed by  the  child.  The  treasures  were 
arranged  in  groups  :  first  the  Psalms  ;  then, 
Books  First,  Second  and  Third ;  then 
the  Select ;  and  lastly,  the  "  Occasional 
Pieces,"  whose  real  meaning  was  one  of 
the  little  girl's  unsolved  mysteries.  It 
was  as  exciting  as  a  play  to  guess  from 
which  one  of  these  groups  the  minister 
would  make  a  selection ;  and  she  won- 
dered much  at  the  mental  strength  which 
enabled  the  good  man  to  choose  in  the 
midst  of  such  an  embarrassment  of  inter- 
esting things.  And  how  did  he  know  what 
verses  to  omit  ?  —  for  it  was  then  the  fashion 
to  omit  something  from  a  hymn.  And  how 
interesting  it  all  was  when  she  was  old 
enough  to  find,  with  her  plump  little  fin- 
gers, Book  Second,  Hymn  167,  or  Select 
Hymn  95,  or  Psalm  99,  second  part. 
Somehow,  the  Occasional  Pieces  were 
never  chosen,  —  and  they  so  full  of  mys- 
teries !  There  were  some  after  which 
one  read,  "Anc.  Lyre;"  and  the  little 
girl  had  never  heard  of  a  lyre  or  an  anc. 
A  great  many  were  marked  "  Ibid," —  and 
that  meant  no  more  to  her  than  did  the 
"Anc.  Lyre." 

Another  mystery  was  the  little  groups 
of  initials  which  preceded  each  hymn  or 
psalm.     Sometimes  it  was  "  L.  P.  M.,"  or 


p 


510 


AN   OLD   NEW  ENGLAND  HYMN-BOOK. 


"  H.  M.,"  or  "S.  M.,"  or,  more  frequently, 
"  C.  M."  and  "  L.  M."  And  sometimes, 
when  no  initials  were  found,  there  were 
some  even  more  perplexing  figures,  that 
seemed  to  mean  nothing  at  all,  such  as, 
"8's,  7's  and  4's ;  "  "  7's  and  6's,"  or 
"  7's"  alone. 

The  little  girl  grew  very  weary  trying 
to  solve  this  particular  mystery ;  but  she 
intended  to  work  it  out  by  herself,  and 
would  not  permit  herself  to  ask  an  older 
person's  assistance. 

"  Pause  the  First "  and  "  Pause  the 
Second,"  interpolated  in  the  midst  of  a. 
hymn  of  sixteen  verses,  appeared  to  give 
the  singers  a  chance  to  rest,  should  the 
minister  ever  let  his  imagination  run  riot 
in  one  of  these  selections ;  but  the  little 
girl  could  not  discover  that  he  really  ever 
did  make  use  of  one  of  these  portentous 
hymns,  though  she  watched  very  closely 
and  with  eager  anticipation.  The  Sunday 
when  she  stayed  at  home  with  the  measles, 
and  that  other  when  a  great  freshet  washed 
away  the  bridge  so  that  none  of  the  family 
went  to  church,  had  an  added  wretched- 
ness because  of  her  fear  that  an  Occa- 
sional Piece  or  a  Pause  Psalm  might  be 
sung. 

In  several  hymns  there  were  bracketed 
verses,  though  the  little  girl  did  not  sc 
name  them  at  the  time ;  and  she  solved 
this  mystery  by  supposing  that  the  writer 
of  these  hymns  considered  the  verses  so 
treated  as  of  less  value  than  the  others 
and  always  to  be  omitted  by  the  choir. 
Then  she  wondered  why,  since  he  con- 
sidered them  inferior,  he  should  have  used 
them  at  all. 

In  addition  to  all  these  marks  and  signs 
and  other  mysteries,  many  of  the  hymns 
fairly  bristled  with  tiny  letters,  usually  set 
at  the  left' of  a  line  ;  and  sometimes  there 
was  one  or  even  more  at  the  beginning 
of  a  line,  thus  :  — ■ 

J     Hark!  the  Eternal  rends  the  sky; 

A  mighty  voice  before  him  goes,  — 
b     A  voice  of  music  to  his  friends, 
u        But  threatening  thunder  to  his  foes. 

Not  till  many  years  later,  when  she 
had  learned  to  read  the  long  words  in 
the  preface,  did  the  little  girl  discover 
that  the  careful  compiler  of  the  hymn- 
book  had  devised  a  "  key  of  expression  " 
for    the    use    of    choirs,    and    that    "  b  " 


indicated  "quick  and  soft;"  "  d," 
"variously  distinctive;"  (but  both  of 
these  words  in  such  connection  con- 
tinued a  long  mystery)  ;  "s,"  "quick  and 
loud;"  "u,"  "very  quick;"  and  so  on. 
She  felt  quite  sure  that,  had  she  written 
the  hymn-book,  every  line  would  have 
been  marked  "  u." 

And  then  she  wondered  at  the  superior 
ability  of  a  choir  that  could  change  so 
rapidly  from  "  variously  distinctive,"  for 
example,  whatever  it  might  mean,  to 
"quick  and  soft,"  or  from  very  loud 
to  "  variously  distinctive,"  without  ever 
making  a  mistake  or  losing  their  places. 
But  the  choir,  perched  under  the  roof, 
with  the  long,  thin  tune-books  and  the 
thick,  fat  hymn-books,  and  the  long  veils 
and  graceful,  considered  motions  and 
general  dignity  •  of  demeanor,  was  a 
wonderful  company,  always  to  be  gazed 
on  with  admiring  reverence. 

Another  subject  for  Sunday  morning 
musings  over  "Watts  and  Select"  was 
the  curious  arrangement  of  some  of  the 
H.  M.  and  P.  M.  hymns  in  this  fashion  : — 


"  O  let  my  feet 
Ne'er  run  astray, 

and, 

"  Awakes  his  wrath 
Without  delay 

"  He  is  a  friend 
And  brother  too, 


Nor  rove  nor  seek 
The  crooked  way." 


■  s  lions  roar 
And  tear  the  prey." 

Divinely  kind, 
Divinely  true." 


In  this  latter  instance,  and  in  many 
others,  one  could  read  across  as  well  as 
up  and  down,  and  the  variety  afforded 
not  a  little  diversion  to  the  little  girl 
when  the  minister  was  prolonging  his 
sermon  indefinitely  and  when  the  dark 
green  kid  glove  had  become  absorbed  in 
the  argument  and  forgot  to  administer 
love  pats. 

It  was  a  little  difficult  to  read  the 
"  Psalms,"  which  abounded  in  long  names 
and  were  not  easy  to  understand,  even 
when  you  could  pronounce  the  words. 
Some  of  these  psalms  had  twenty-five 
and  even  more  verses,  and  the  one  hun- 
dred and  nineteenth  was  a  perfect  wil- 
derness of  metres  and  signs,  pauses  and 
divisions  into  parts,  —  and  there  were 
many  marked  "The  same."  The  subject- 
matter,  so  far  as  the  little  girl  could  com- 
prehend   it,    was    rather    frightful    than 


AN   OLD   NEW  ENGLAND   HYMN-BOOK. 


511 


otherwise.  There  was  much  about  "  the 
sons  of  Adam  ;  "  and  "  Ye  sons  of  Adam, 
vain  and  young,"  had  a  decidedly  personal 
flavor.  "Ye  tribes  of  Adam,  join,"  evi- 
dently referred  to  another  family,  —  that 
is,  the  family  of  "Adam  Join."  The 
little  girl  took  a  fearful  pleasure  in  read- 
ing and  re-reading  such  verses  as 
these  :  — ■ 

"  Now  Satan  comes  with  dreadful  roar 
And  threatens  to  destroy, 
He  worries  whom  he  can't  devour 
With  a  malicious  joy." 

"  Tempests  of  angry  fire  shall  roll 
To  blast  the  rebel  worm." 

"  Awake  and  mourn,  ye  heirs  of  hell, 

See  how  the  pit  gapes  wide  for  you." 
***** 
"  Justice  has  built  a  dismal  hell 

And  laid  her  stores  of  vengeance  there." 
***** 
"  Eternal  plagues  and  heavy  chains, 
Tormenting  racks  and  fiery  coals, 
And  darts  t'  inflict  immortal  pains." 

But  the  guiltiest  and  wicked'est  of  all 
to  the  misguided  fancy  of  the  little  girl, 
was  in  the  "Select,"  and  began  with 
what  seemed  to  her  a  profane  joviality 
which  greatly   interested  her :  — 

"  Come  on,  my  partners  in  distress, 
Companions  through  this  wilderness." 

She  could  not  comprehend  the  glory 
of  that  beatific  vision  of  Wesley  which 
forms  the  subject  of  the  hymn,  and  in 
some  way  connected  the  all-around  in- 
vitation apparently  conveyed  in  these 
opening  lines  with  a  very  vivid  picture  of 
Pharaoh  and  his  host  being  drowned  in 
the  Red  Sea,  as  seen  in  the  illustrated 
family  Bible,  in  which  some  very  broad- 
faced,  hideous  men  with  flying  locks 
seemed  to  be  beckoning  to  their  com- 
panions on  shore  to  come  on  and  share 
their  misery. 

There  was  something  in  the  old  book 
about  monsters  of  the  deep  lashing  their 
tails  and  roaring ;  and  a  very  great  deal 
about  death  and  hell  and  the  devil,  be- 
sides the  stray  lines  already  quoted.  The 
little  girl  soon  came  to  understand  that 
such  as  she  could  not  belong  with  the 
saints,  and  that  she  must  therefore  be 
classed  with  the  vile  and  guilty  wretches 


of  Dr.  Watts,  whose  authority  she  had  no 
reason  to  question.  There  seemed  little 
doubt  that  she  was  doomed  to  something 
very  dreadful,  and  that  all  the  pleasures 
that  she  most  enjoyed  must  be  considered 
"  vain  shows."  She  therefore  privately 
decided  that,  since  death  and  hell  and 
torment  were  foreordained  as  the  portion 
of  guilty  worms,  and  since  "  sons  of  Adam, 
vain  and  young,"  were  under  an  all-em- 
bracing ban,  she  might  as  well  take  her 
pleasures  as  she  went  along.  And  it  was 
at  about  this  time  that  she  began  a  sys- 
tematic but  not  long  continued  course  of 
disobedience  to  the  commands  of  the 
owner  of  the  green  kid  gloves,  especially 
in  the  matter  of  running  away  from  home 
to  visit  a  forbidden,  naughty,  but  very 
fascinating  little  girl  of  her  own   age. 

Very  mysterious  and  "fetching"  was 
that  hymn  in  the  "  Select,"  beginning, 
"  Vital  spark  of  heavenly  flame."  "  Vital 
spark"  sounded  lovely  and  fascinating  to 
her  for  some  reason  ;  and  though  she  was 
far  enough  from  understanding  its  real 
meaning,  she  still  had  a  true  instinct  con- 
cerning its  spiritual  significance,  which 
she  could  not  have  expressed  in  words  of 
her  own. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  it  would  have 
been  far  more  to  the  credit  of  the  little 
girl,  had  she  preferred  the  mild  and 
peaceable  hymns ;  but  these  appealed 
less  forcibly  to  her  imagination,  which 
was  ever  eager  for  stimulus.  There  was, 
however,  a  pretty  verse  about  the  Rose 
of  Sharon  and  the  Lily  of  the  Valley, 
which  pleased  her  fancy;  and  another 
verse,   bracketed,   but    good,    beginning, 

"  White  lilies  all  around  appear, 
And  each  his  glory  shows." 

One  more  diversion  found  in  the 
"Watts  and  Select"  was  in  the  index. 
Here  the  lines  were  short,  very  short,  and 
had  a  curious  fashion  of  stopping  in 
curious  places  and  leaving  one  to  imagine 
the  endings ;  as  for  instance  :  "  Long 
have  I  sat :  "  "  Look  down,  O  ;  "  "  Majes- 
tic sweet ;  "  "  O  what  a  gl.  sight ;  "  "By 
whom  was;"  "Come  all;"  and  "Ere 
the  blue."  The  study  of  these  lines  taxed 
her  imagination  considerably,  and  she 
often  drew  on  the  Nursery  Rhymes  to  fill 
out  these  fragmentary  verses,  and  so  all 


512 


AN   OLD   NEW  ENGLAND   HYMN-BOOK. 


the  more  enjoyed  the  leaves  of  the  old 
hymn-book. 

Directly  in  front  of  the  pew  occupied 
by  the  little  girl  with  her  father  and 
mother  and  mischievous  brother,  there 
sat  a  good  old  deacon,  whose  hair 
had  a  nice  little  curl  at  the  ends.  He 
wore  spectacles,  and  always  took  down 
the  text  and  many  notes  of  those  appall- 
ing sermons,  with  a  very  stubby  pencil 
which  never  seemed  to  wear  out,  on  some 
very  dark  blue  note  paper  with  wide  lines. 
He  was  superintendent  of  the  Sunday 
school,  and  gave  out  hymns  from  the 
"  Watts  and  Select "  to  the  boys  and 
girls ;  but  the  boys  and  girls  never  sang 
them,  only  looked  over  while  the  grown 
people  led  the  exercise.  But  because  of 
the  blue  paper  and  the  notes  and  the 
authority  which  this  good  man  had  ac- 
quired, doubtless  from  the  minister  him- 
self, the  little  girl  had  a  deep  feeling 
of  reverence  for  the  good  deacon, 
mingled  with  as  much  affection  as  she 
dared  feel  for  a  man  who  could  take  notes 
of  the  sermon,  partly  because,  on  a  week- 
day, the  deacon  often  gave  her  long  and 
curly  shavings  to  play  with  from  his  shop  ; 
while  as  for  the  minister,  she  always  ran 
out  of  the  house  when  she  saw  him  com- 
ing, and  felt  more  of  a  son  of  Adam  than 
ever.  The  curly  locks  of  the  deacon 
always  suggested  curly  shavings,  and  she 
somehow  fancied  that  their  waviness  was 
produced  in  the  little  red  shop  by  a 
process  similar  to  that  which  gave  a  curl 
to  the  shavings  on  which  she  doted. 

To-day,  looking  at  the  old  hymn-book, 
the  grown-up  little  girl  finds  an  interesting 
study  in  the  explanatory  preface  of  "  The 
Psalms,.  Hymns  and  Spiritual  Songs  of 
the  Rev.  Isaac  Watts,  D.  D.,  to  which  are 
added  Select  Hymns  from  other  authors 
and    directions  for   musical   expression." 


The  editor  states  that  the  present  edition 
is  especially  enriched  with  hymns  which 
relate  to  the  life  and  glory  of  Christ,  the 
alarming  condition  of  the  unconverted, 
the  feelings  of  the  convicted  and  penitent 
...  to  times  and  seasons,  more  particu- 
larly the  solemn  periods  of  sickness  and 
death,  eternity  and  judgment."  He  also 
adds  that  "  the  great  defect  of  our  public 
psalmody  in  general  is  the  want  of 
expression.  .  .  .  That  performance  of 
psalmody,  and  that  only,  is  entitled  to  be 
called  good,  in  which  the  movement, 
quantity  and  the  tone  of  voice  are  well 
adapted  to  the  general  subject,  and  so 
varied  as  justly  to  express  the  different 
thoughts,  sentiments  and  passions.  This, 
it  is  confessed,  is  an  attainment  of  no  small 
difficulty.  .  .  .  To  assist  singers  in  this 
essential  but  neglected  part  of  good 
psalmody,  no  method  appears  more  eligi- 
ble than  that  of  so  marking  the  psalms 
and  hymns  by  means  of  certain  symbols,  as 
to  indicate  .  .  .  the  requisite  variations 
of  movement,  quantity  and  tone  of  voice. 
.  .  .  The  Pathetic  in  general  ...  re- 
quires the  slow  and  soft ;  the  Grand 
requires  slow  and  loud ;  the  Beautiful, 
the  quick  and  soft ;  .  .  „  the  short  dash, 
after  any  other  symbol,  denotes  the  pas- 
sage to  be  in  all  respects  common,  i.  c, 
to  be  sung  without  any  particular  expres- 
sion." 

But  there  is  not  a  word  of  explana- 
tion about  the  "  variously  distinctive." 

One  could  scarcely  find  a  greater  con- 
trast than  is  presented  by  the  old  hymn- 
book  and  the  gospel  songs  of  to-day. 
Doubtless  the  latter  would  have  been 
regarded  as  greatly  lacking  in  strong, 
doctrinal  flavor,  in  the  days  of  the  singing 
of  the  "Watts  and  Select,"  and  as  condu- 
cive to  but  a  flabby  and  effeminate  type 
of  Christianity. 


^"♦<y 


^ 


